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Minnesota woman to appeal $220,000 RIAA award
Jammie Thomas announces she will challenge federal jury's decision that making files available online violates copyright.
Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota woman who last week was ordered to pay the recording industry $222,000 for copyright violations related to sharing songs, has decided to appeal the verdict.
Jammie Thomas says she plans to appeal.
Thomas announced her decision Monday morning on cable news channel CNN and on her MySpace.com page.
Thomas said on her blog that she and her attorney, Brian Toder, plan to appeal based on the federal jury's finding that making songs available online violates copyright.
"This would stop the RIAA dead in their tracks," Thomas wrote on her blog. "Every single suit they have brought has been based on this making-available theory, and if we can win this appeal, they would actually have to prove a file was shared."
The jury issued a decision on Thursday that Thomas was guilty of violating copyright for 24 songs and required her to pay $9,250 for each. The jury never found that Thomas had downloaded any music but had infringed by making the music available for to others to download.
The case is the first time the RIAA has won a jury verdict against an accused file sharer.
